The 15-part "Breakdowns" storyline that ran through late 1991 into 1992 of the Justice League titles spelled the end of the heyday of the Justice League International's very popular "Bwah-Ha-Ha" era.

The letter column of Justice League America #55 (Breakdowns Part 5) made the announcement that a new team lineup would coming in issue #61 and gave fans a ballot to vote for the heroes they most wanted to see on the team.

According to the letter column in Justice League Spectacular #1 (which I recently re-read while preparing for last week's "My Favorite Pages" feature), DC received more than 6 million total votes!

To be fair, many of those votes were duplicate ballots that were not double counted, but it's not clear whether any of the votes received made any actual difference on which characters were chosen for the new team. After all, the poll was published only six months before issue #61 was to released and the production of a DC comic book generally takes about three months, meaning there was only a small window for voters to influence any decisions made by editors or writers.

The full results of the poll were not made public, but Justice League editor Kevin Dooley did reveal that the top vote-getter was J'ohn J'onzz, who pointedly was not on the new team. Dooley also explicitly named Peacemaker as the character with the fewest votes, and to no great surprise, Peacemaker wasn't on the team, either.

Of course, this being a Booster Gold blog, we'd be most interested to know how many votes Booster got. All we can know for sure was that it was more than three. Dooley listed all the characters, mostly write-ins, who got three or fewer votes, and Skeets got two votes! (Other two-vote getters were Angel and the Ape, Arisia, Beefeater, Brother Power the Geek, Catwoman, Deadman, Sue Dibny, Dove, Lady Flash, Maser, Mera, Nuklon, Peter Canon, Praxis, The Question, Red Star, Sandman, Snapper Carr, Valor, Wildcat, and the Wonder Twins. That some pretty good company, Skeets!)

However many votes Booster Gold got, the important takeaway is that he made the team. Maybe one day, Skeets will, too.

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As all Booster boosters know by now, DC has announced a new Blue Beetle/Booster Gold mini-series coming in July 2021. What you may not know is just how long it has taken to get to this blessed event. What follows is the second in a series of three posts that originally appeared here on Boosterrific in June 2011:

Just a few months after Dan Jurgens teased the impending release of The Blue and the Gold in August 1988's Direct Currents #8 (as posted in part 1 of this series), the news was confirmed in the Justice Log letter column of Justice League International #25 (April 1989).

These letter column responses are presumably written by series editor, Andy Helfer, or more likely his assistant, Kevin Dooley. They should be in position to know the accuracy of the following news they printed a few months later in Justice League America #32 (November 1989).

I don't know where the news of the new publication date was was released first, but it doesn't much seem to matter. That "semi-regular" series hint seems to suggest that by this time, DC had decided that the ideas behind The Blue and the Gold series had been rolled into what eventually became Justice League Quarterly at the end of 1990. More news about The Blue and the Gold series wouldn't appear until writer/artist Dan Jurgens and editor Brian Augustyn took over the series in 1992. The news wasn't good, but at least it was honest. From Justice League America #64 (July 1992):

Jurgens was the go-to man for many of DC's major event series in the early- to mid-1990s, and his schedule was always full. Worse, just a few issues later, Booster would be powerless, and Beetle would be in his second coma, both thanks to Doomsday. Months passed before both were back in fighting condition, and this storyline seems to preclude the opportunity for a spin-off mini-series focusing on the pair. The letter column for Justice League America #71 (February 1993) seems to confirm this being the end of the road for the long-planned series. This is the last mention of The Blue and Gold in the series.

Five years after Dan Jurgens called it "the one project I'm really excited about," The Blue and the Gold looked like another missed opportunity.

Next time, we'll revisit my 2011 Q&A with Dan Jurgens about the fate of The Blue and the Gold series.

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Just a few months after Dan Jurgens teased the impending release of The Blue and the Gold in August 1988's Direct Currents #8 (as posted in yesterday's blog post), the news was confirmed in the Justice Log letter column of Justice League International #25 (April 1989).

These letter column responses are presumably written by series editor, Andy Helfer, or more likely his assistant, Kevin Dooley. They should be in position to know the accuracy of the following news they printed a few months later in Justice League America #32 (November 1989).

I don't know where the news of the new publication date was was released first, but it doesn't much seem to matter. That "semi-regular" series hint seems to suggest that by this time, DC had decided that the ideas behind The Blue and the Gold series had been rolled into what eventually became Justice League Quarterly at the end of 1990. More news about The Blue and the Gold series wouldn't appear until writer/artist Dan Jurgens and editor Brian Augustyn took over the series in 1992. The news wasn't good, but at least it was honest. From Justice League America #64 (July 1992):

Jurgens was the go-to man for many of DC's major event series in the early- to mid-1990s, and his schedule was always full. Worse, just a few issues later, Booster would be powerless, and Beetle would be in his second coma, both thanks to Doomsday. Months passed before both were back in fighting condition, and this storyline seems to preclude the opportunity for a spin-off mini-series focusing on the pair. The letter column for Justice League America #71 (February 1993) seems to confirm this being the end of the road for the long-planned series. This is the last mention of The Blue and Gold in the series.

Five years after Dan Jurgens called it "the one project I'm really excited about," The Blue and the Gold looked like another missed opportunity. To be sure that I had the whole story, I went to the source. Tomorrow here on the Boosterrific Blog: my Q&A with Dan Jurgens about the fate of The Blue and the Gold series.

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